What the employment law changes could mean for your practice

Does the increase to National Insurance and recent employment law amendments change the maths on clinical pharmacist hiring?

With GP practices and PCNs are already facing significant challenges in recruiting and retaining clinical pharmacists, do the recent changes to emplyment rights and upcoming National Insurance hike mean that stretched recruitment budgets and strained recruitment processes will suffer even more?

As highlighted in a recent Pharmacist article, local competition and stretched budgets are making it increasingly difficult to secure the talent needed with a pharmacist vacancy rate of 32% in England. And, with a quarter of practices making redundancies due to stretched budgets, the upcoming increases to National Insurance contributions and employment law changes are potentially adding further complexities to an already complex situation.

And, it’s not just hiring challenges, retention is a risk for practices. The Pharmacist article cites a GP partner on the difficulties of retaining staff:

“We have taken on several ARRS paramedics and clinical pharmacists, spent two to three hours per week of my time training them in the ways of primary care, only to have them leave for jobs in other PCNs.”

This underscores the difficulty practices face not only in attracting but also in retaining qualified staff. The added financial pressures from National Insurance increases and the complexities introduced by evolving employment law could further fuel this churn.

Changes to employment law

So, what exactly are the changes to employment law and why might they tip the balance for practices looking to hire permanent pharmacists? In and of themselves, the additional protections to workers rights from day one are welcome by many – however as with any new legislation, it adds complexity and risk. And, at a time where practices already struggle to hire and retain staff, it’s added complexity many will wish to do without.

Our sister company, CHASE, recently published a blog highlighting some of the recent changes, what they mean and highlighted the importance of outsourced teams in navigating such changes. While their focus is on the pharmaceutical industry, their insights are relevant across healthcare. As they noted;

“The Employment Rights Bill has raised the stakes for compliance, administration, and risk handling, but businesses can confidently meet these challenges with the right partner..”

How Medacy can help

At Medacy, we understand the challenges hiring permanent pharmacists… we do it ourselves! Unlike agencies or locum services, we use permanently employed Medacy staff to deliver our services. This means we take on the complexities and risks associated with employment law changes, allowing you to focus on what matters most: providing excellent patient care.

Using permanent staff also allows us to direct and control our pharmacists while they are engaged on site – so no more risk of sinking valuable time and resources to train a new hire, only for them to leave for a role in a PCN. All our pharmacists are backed by a unique virtual practice model, so even if they are a lone pharmacist in your practice, they have the combined knowledge and experience of senior Medacy colleagues on hand when they need it.

With options for remote and on-site support with our fully managed clinical pharmacist services, you get the benefit of experienced, highly-trained clinical pharmacists without the added burden of navigating ever-shifting employment regulations.